From CodeNewbie To Full Time Freelancer In One Year – Part 6: Tools

A CodeNewbie's Diary

- From CodeNewbie To Full Time Freelancer -

PART 6

Part 6: Tools

In part 5 I discussed my decision to focus on development instead of design. This helped to bring clarity to my business and helped me to define my target audience.

As soon as one begins to pick up freelance work and consider doing it full time, questions arise such as: How much do I set aside for taxes? How can I efficiently manage the money I make? Do I need project management software? Invoicing software? A professional email? And on and on.

So in this post I want to list a few tools that I have picked up along the way that have proven fruitful and efficient in my start as a freelancer. Hopefully this will bring benefit to you as well.

A Word of Advice

One caveat up front:

There are tons of apps and software that promise to make your life easier. There is a temptation to get caught up in the search for the greatest new app, instead of finding ones that meet your needs and utilizing them well.

Be wise.

Financial / Invoicing

I wrote a post recently reviewing the financial/invoicing tools that I have used in the past so I will not go into too much detail.

However, I will say that in my opinion it is beneficial to try and find a SINGLE app that will allow you to 1. Invoice, 2. Track your time, AND 3. Manage your money.

No need to look for three separate apps at the outset. Just find one that does all three and learn how to manage it well. I found all three functions in an affordable app called Zoho Books and you can read more about that here.

Now you will also want to set up a separate account for the money you make freelancing. It doesn’t matter if you start as a Sole Proprietorship or an LLC, just take my word and keep it separate.

I also recommend the strategy found in a book called Profit First. This book will help you setup the accounts you need, lay out for you how to keep these separate and how to allocate to each one, as well as how to see that your business actually creates profit.

Email / Storage

Another implementation you will want to make up front is to replace that generic gmail or yahoo email account with something more professional like [email protected]

For these purposes I decided to go with G Suite. For $5/month you get a personalized email, aliases, a 30GB Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Meet, and a few other helpful tools.

If only for the personalized email, $5/month is a great deal. However, the other features are in my opinion priceless in a freelance business.

Meetings

If you decide to go with G Suite as mentioned above, you can keep organized with Google Docs and Sheets. Create a folder for each of your clients and allow them access if needed. Store your meeting notes and minutes here.

Project Management

At first I did a trial of ActiveCollab and it was fantastic. Yet, once the trial expired I was reluctant to pay the $25 a month as I wanted to explore other alternatives.

That is when I realized there were about a million of them. Some were costly (Basecamp!) and some were free (Asana).

However, I came to the realization that at this point these were just novelties. I didn’t have a team. I wasn’t juggling multiple projects. And I didn’t really have the time to learn a new piece of software.

So I took a step back, decided to look for a free solution and a solution that had an easy learning curve.